# 2

Source: PSS vol. 7

First of all, I would like to make two remarks of a particular nature. In the first place, concerning Axelrod's kind (I say this without irony) proposal to "make a deal." I would readily have heeded this call, for I do not at all consider our disagreement to be so essential that the life or death of the party depends upon it. We shall hardly perish from a bad statute clause! But since we have already reached the point of choosing between two formulations, I cannot possibly renounce my firm conviction that Martov's formulation constitutes a worsening of the original draft—a worsening which may, under certain conditions, do considerable harm to the party. The second remark concerns comrade Brucker. It is entirely natural that, wishing to introduce the electoral principle everywhere, comrade Brucker adopted my formulation, which alone defines the concept of party membership with some precision. I therefore do not understand comrade Martov's pleasure at comrade Brucker's agreement with me. Surely comrade Martov does not actually regard the opposite of what Brucker says as a guide for himself, without examining his motives and arguments?

Turning to the substance of the matter, I shall say that comrade Trotsky has completely failed to understand comrade Plekhanov's fundamental thought and therefore has bypassed the entire essence of the question in his arguments. He spoke of intellectuals and workers, of the class point of view and of mass movement, but failed to notice one fundamental question: does my formulation narrow or broaden the concept of party membership? If he had asked himself this question, he would easily have seen that my formulation narrows this concept, while Martov's broadens it, differing (in Martov's own apt expression) by its "elasticity." And it is precisely this "elasticity" in such a period of party life as we are now experiencing that undoubtedly throws open the doors to all elements of discord, vacillation, and opportunism. To refute this simple and obvious conclusion, one would have to prove that such elements do not exist, and comrade Trotsky never even thought of doing this. Indeed, one cannot prove this, for everyone knows that there are many such elements, that they exist even in the working class. The defense of the firmness of our line and the purity of our party's principles becomes precisely now a task all the more urgent, in that our party, restored to its unity, will admit into its ranks a very large number of unstable elements, whose numbers will grow as the party grows. Comrade Trotsky has very incorrectly understood the fundamental idea of my book *What Is to Be Done?* when he said that the party is not a conspiratorial organization (this objection has been made to me by many others as well). He forgot that I presuppose in my book a whole series of different types of organizations, ranging from the most conspiratorial and narrowest to comparatively broad and "free" (loose)[65] ones. He forgot that the party ought to be only the vanguard detachment, the leader of the tremendous mass of the working class, which as a whole (or almost as a whole) works "under the control and leadership" of party organizations, but which does not enter the party as a whole and ought not to enter the party as a whole. Just look at what conclusions comrade Trotsky actually draws from his fundamental error. He told us here that if rows and rows of workers were being arrested and all workers declared their non-membership in the party, then our party would be strange! Is it not the opposite? Is not comrade Trotsky's reasoning strange? He considers deplorable what would only delight any experienced revolutionary. If hundreds and thousands of workers arrested for strikes and demonstrations should prove not to be members of party organizations, this would prove only that our organizations are good, that we are fulfilling our task—to keep conspiratorially somewhat narrow the circle of leaders and to attract to the movement as broad a mass as possible. The root of the error of those who stand for Martov's formulation lies in the fact that they not only ignore one of the fundamental evils of our party life, but even sanctify this evil. This evil consists in the fact that in an atmosphere of almost universal political discontent, under conditions of complete secrecy of work, under conditions of concentration of the greater part of activity in narrow secret circles and even private meetings, it is extraordinarily difficult for us, almost impossible, to distinguish the talkers from the workers. And one can hardly find another country in which the mixing of these two categories is so common, introduces such a darkness of confusion and harm, as in Russia. Not only among the intelligentsia, but also among the working class we suffer severely from this evil, and comrade Martov's formulation legalizes this evil. This formulation inevitably tends to make everyone and each person a member of the party; comrade Martov himself had to acknowledge this with a reservation—"if you will," he said. Precisely this is what we do not will! Precisely for this reason we rise so decisively against Martov's formulation. Better that ten workers do not call themselves party members (genuine workers do not chase after ranks!) than that one talker should have the right and possibility of being a party member. This is the principle which seems to me irrefutable and which compels me to struggle against Martov. I have been objected to by those who said that we grant party members no rights whatsoever, and therefore no abuses are possible. Such an objection is completely untenable: if we have not specified what particular rights a party member receives, note that we have also provided no indications of limiting the rights of party members. This in the first place. But in the second place, and this is the main thing, regardless even of rights, one cannot forget that every party member is responsible to the party and the party is responsible for every member. Under our conditions of political activity, under the embryonic state of genuine political organization, it would be directly dangerous and harmful to grant people who are not in the organization the right of membership and to impose responsibility on the party for such people who do not enter the organization (and do not enter, perhaps deliberately). Comrade Martov was horrified at the fact that in court a non-member of a party organization would not have the right, despite his energetic work, to call himself a party member. This does not frighten me. It would be a serious harm, on the other hand, if a person who calls himself a party member, belonging to none of the party organizations, were to declare himself in an undesirable light in court. It is impossible to refute that such a person worked under the control and leadership of the organization—it is impossible precisely because of the vagueness of the term. Factually—and this cannot be doubted—the words "under the control and leadership" will lead to the situation that there will be neither control nor leadership. The Central Committee will never be able to extend genuine control over all workers who are active but do not belong to organizations. Our task is to place actual control in the hands of the Central Committee. Our task is to safeguard the firmness, consistency, and purity of our party. We must strive to elevate the rank and significance of party membership higher, higher, and higher still—and for this reason I am against Martov's formulation.

Verified against the manuscript